An Unusually Small Team...?

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by andyhoyt911

There are currently 5 competent people on our team, due to 12 team members just had to go and graduate on us last year. Does anyone else have this small of a team, and if so, how did YOUR team get the job done? All of our abilities are rather scattered, one of us can KIND OF program, one of us can wire, one of us can KIND OF machine, and yeah.

Are we alone out here?

First off, DON'T underestimate your skills. No one expects teams to have a professional student programmer or machinist. Corry has produced some excellent robots during the past few years, and though your team is currently smaller, you have watched and experienced all that has gone into making those great bots. You and your teammates have more experience than you seem willing to accept credit.

As a school based team, the obvious first choice to build the team-base is within your own school. However, if you are not able to get to your "critical mass" of students, see if the administration will allow students outside your system to participate (private schools or home-schooled students).

One year at VCU, we met a home-schooled team who each built a robot component independent of each other. It was only immediately before shipping that all parts were brought together for the first time and assembled for competition. An interesting communications concept to deal with the large distances that separated the students, and a significantly more difficult challenge than most of our teams face.

Second, spend as much time as possible during the fall to improve your own skills and train new students. If possible, attend off-season events, even if you are not competing, to familiarize your new students to the FIRST culture. Walk around the pits, and have them discuss with teams about how their robot is built/programmed. Get SPECIFIC! Why did they use a dual lift instead of a ramp? How did they build their combo Ramp-Lift? Etc. Off-season events aren't just for gameplay, they should also be a training session for new students and rookie teams.

Finally, if you find that you do need assistance with skills, reach out to the FRC community. One of your neighbors, whom you have traveled with over the past few years, Team 291 CIA, is listed as "Willing to Mentor" on the FIRST website. Mentoring Teams are not only looking to help rookies, but also to help any established teams that need assistance. There are many programming questions that will end up here on CD, and often there are a number of suggestions/ideas to solve the problem. Your team's resources extend far beyond your school, make effective use of them.

CRT has been one of the fun teams to watch at the Philadelphia Regional the past few years, and I expect they will be again in 2008!